As the long holiday approaches I planned to have a wonderful time with my family and make sure that I reduced going out as much as possible in order to give quality time to my loved ones. As part of the plan, I thought it would be nice to buy a new decoder and watch some exciting things together so I came out of my slightly rigid shell of maximising every penny and bought a DSTV decoder. It was supposed to be part of a series of surprises for my wife so she knew nothing until the decoder came in.

As I write, this one thing that was supposed to be part of the surprises has turned out to be very horrible and to say the least, very annoying! The decoder was purchased on Saturday 15th December 2012 and till now (20th December 2012) it has not been activated by the DSTV office. When the installation was done the young man who first answered the call to the customer care unit said it was going to take a few minutes because they were having some issues. Gradually, the issues began to turn into hours! I called them about 3 times that Saturday but nothing was done. On Sunday after church, I resumed calling them and nothing was done. I resumed another round of calls on Monday and nothing was done except to tell me that they were having slight issues but that it would be resolved shortly! Each time I called they asked for smart card number as they always do and claimed to rest the decoder with nothing happening on my screen!

When I got tired of calling them, and I must emphasize that it was also ridiculous to pay for decoder, pay subscription and still call DSTV customer care with your money, I went to their office in Ikeja on Adeyemo Alakija street. I got in there at 4:06pm and left at 5:36pm with a promise that my decoder was going to come up in 24 hours but 24 hours later nothing came up so I resumed calling again and all I got was promises that it would come up. Some of the customer care agents kept talking about the issues they were having as if the customers who bought the decoders were the ones who created the issues! On Thursday morning at 10am, since I was now on vacation, I called the DSTV office again and they asked for a couple of numbers as usual. This time around the lady who answered the call raised my hope and asked me to keep the decoder on because she would fix it in 3 hours. I should say that there was no power supply from PHCN in all those hours so I kept my generator running! I called back at least twice at the expiration of 3 hours but got the same story and another promise that it would be up before the close of work at 6pm. I called back at 7:20pm because the decoder was still not coming and all I got was stories of DSTV having issues! I had graciously kept my generator running from 10am to 7pm hoping and nearly fasting on what I have paid for that it would come up! This, I think, is the shortest possible summary of the wickedness of DSTV to me personally in the last 5 days.

The question is why will this be happening in Nigeria? Can it happen anywhere else without any action being taken against them by the authorities or appropriate regulatory agencies? Why should we be calling DSTV with our money after paying them for decoders and subscribing as well?

Our regulatory agencies are sleeping and they need to wake up to their responsibilities! DSTV has not made any public apology for what is going on at the moment and many more people are still buying the decoders! Adverts of their promos are still running and they get more people to buy around this period! People don’t know they can’t watch what they are buying because they will only install and find out they can’t watch when it’s time to activate! I found out that the issue had been on for days before I even bought mine and as I speak people are still buying decoders.

The Nigerian government also needs to wake up and not let every Tom, Dick and Harry come into this country to experiment things they would be locked up for in their various countries!

Please call DSTV to order with a very heavy sanction as a sign that you have woken up from your slumber! Protect the Nigerian consumers!